Comic Books/Graphic Novels

ExMachina

ExMachina

fails the turing test
Anyone else follow Western comics at all? I got back into them a few years back... and while I rarely pick up individual issues outside of a few series (get most of them in trades now), I keep up fairly well with the general goings-on in the DC universe, and to a lesser extent, the Marvel universe. I'm mainly a fan of the Batfamily, so thus my bias towards DC. :P

Some series I'd recommend to anyone, comic book fan or not...

Self-Contained (no connection with the DCU or MU)

  • Alan Moore - Watchmen (complete)
  • Brian K. Vaughan - Y the Last Man (complete)
  • Bill Willingham - Fables (ongoing)
  • Neil Gaiman - The Sandman (complete; really light referencing of DCU)
  • Mike Mignola - Hellboy (miniseries and one-shots)

DC/Marvel Series

  • Brian K. Vaughan, Joss Whedon, Terry Moore - Runaways (ongoing)
  • Gail Simone - Wonder Woman (ongoing; I've never been a big WW fan but Simone's just that good)
  • Keith Giffen, John Rogers - Blue Beetle (ongoing; basically a series with all the appeal of the teenage Spider-Man era)

Batfamily (it's really only ongoing Batman that gets crossover heavy, Detective and most of these complete stories stand on their own)

  • Frank Miller - Batman: Year One (complete)*
  • Frank Miller - The Dark Knight Returns (complete)
  • Alan Moore - The Killing Joke (complete)*
  • Jeph Loeb - the Long Halloween (complete)*
  • Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker - Gotham Central (complete)
  • Paul Dini - Detective Comics (Dini's one of the main creative forces behind Batman: The Animated Series, so if you liked that, you'll like his run on 'Tec)

*read these if you want to get to know the stories that inspired Batman Begins and The Dark Knight
 
Gotta say, ExMachina, I agree with everything ya said. I'm just surprised you didn't mention the series that shares your name, also by Brian K. Vaughan
 
Ex Machina is not necessarily from the series you mentioned... It could just be the straight up Latin, which means "From the Machine"... You may have heard it before in a more common phrase "Deus Ex Machina", which means "God from the Machine". The phrase got popular in recent years in the advent of Donnie Darko, Serial Experiments Lain, and The Matrix... and of course, you cant forget the game Deus Ex.
 
Oh I'm aware, I just said it shares the name. And figured it probably wasn't *from* the series but that the poster was probably aware of it having listed other brian vaughan titles.
 
@Kosh: Yeah, see... both of those are Marvel series. Haven't read either of those. :P So if people want to supplement my list with Marvel titles, that would be ideal.

@Sporko: Cool to run into someone with similar comic book tastes. :) The medium really has more to offer than just superhero series, but at the same time, some of those superhero comics have genuinely good stories... so I tried to list a good mix. I've also found that with the success of movie adaptations of comic properties recently people have been asking about 'em, so I like pointing people to the best that comics have to offer.

RE: Ex Machina. I have not actually read the series, despite being a huge fan of BKV's, which is why I didn't list it as a recommendation. However, I've only heard good things and plan to read it eventually, probably when it's complete.

@Jaxel: Saves me the trouble of explaining the origin of my screenname. :P In fact, I got the name after learning about the literary device in elementary school and playing Deus Ex.

Oh man, I forgot to mention Marvel: 1602! Also by Neil Gaiman, think classic Marvel characters except set in Elizabethan England.
 
Thanks. I didn't have much choice about being a comics fan growing up, as I was raised in a house with over 150,000 comics contained within at any given time (Dad used to run a mail order comic supply business as a side business before getting his own comicbook store a few years ago).
 
I'm sorta reading the watchmen. It started to really drag on for me and i still haven't finished it. Certain things started to annoy me like the metaphors with the old pirate comic book and the excerpts that are at the end of every chapter.

I have no idea how they're gonna turn this into a good movie, especially since every one of Moore's films gets butchered on the silver screen. "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" anyone? Sean F'n Connery couldn't even save the movie!

also shout out to Red Sun Superman. It doesn't get any more badass than Soviet Batman.
 
Yeah, I know what you mean whitey. It's an incredible story, especially when you finish it, but it's layered so damn deep that you'd have to read it 5+ times in succession to pick apart each thing. Even the frames' positions on the page have meaning!

As for Batman... As much as the Hush and Year One series helped define his character, I think Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth defined his perceived identity. Talk about pushing the envelope! I always prefer tortured Batman to gung-ho Batman any day.

I'll also speak up for the quieter brands and say that Wanted and the Sin City comics are effing awesome too. Those two are about as manly as comics get IMO :D
 
anyone else read preacher? it's the only comic i ever really liked...don't even remember if that's what it was called...years ago. anyway that shit was jacked...i loved it/
 
I couldn't put Watchmen down for the last 100 pages. Epic finish - why it will always rank as the greatest graphic novel of all time.

Totally agree on Fables - just finished "The Good Prince." What a great chapter.

You missed "Maus," though. No graphic novel collection is complete without that.

For Marvel, I'd recommend the "Astonishing X-Men" arc by Joss Whedon, "New X-Men: Childhood's End" (it's a long arc), and "Messiah Complex," which was just unbelievably good. I didn't think Marvel had it in them to create a crossover that well-written. X-Factor is always terrific, and the 2 X-23 miniseries are both excellent. Bendis' arc, which spans the entire main Marvel universe, starts with "Secret War" and finishes up with the current "Secret Invasion" (which is trying my patience). Great stuff in there.

DC lost me after the Infinite Crisis debacle a couple years ago. But the old Batman and Superman stuff I do love. Especially the teamup they did for awhile. "How did you know?" "Super. Hearing."
 
Watchmen, no doubt. V for Vendetta is fine too, but Watchmen has such an array of great characters and epic story that I see it was undefeatable in the graphic novel department.
 
Archangel said:
DC lost me after the Infinite Crisis debacle a couple years ago.
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Oh god I could not agree more. DC was so good in the mid to late 90's after they had escaped all the campiness of the 60's 70's and 80's. And then it's as if they made a collective effort to return to it.

I can sum up Infinite Crisis, and its worth as a story, in one simple sentence.

Superboy Prime punched reality and brought Jason Todd back to life.
 
Archangel said:
For Marvel, I'd recommend the "Astonishing X-Men" arc by Joss Whedon, "New X-Men: Childhood's End" (it's a long arc), and "Messiah Complex," which was just unbelievably good. I didn't think Marvel had it in them to create a crossover that well-written. X-Factor is always terrific, and the 2 X-23 miniseries are both excellent. Bendis' arc, which spans the entire main Marvel universe, starts with "Secret War" and finishes up with the current "Secret Invasion" (which is trying my patience). Great stuff in there.
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Did you agree with the whole House of M thing? I agree that Messiah Complex is an entertaining concept but as I ranted before, I think it would've been a better change to go with the mutant majority idea, even if the "ultimate psycho mutant" is interesting as hell and will now be one of the cornerstones of the X-Men universe for years to come (provided they don't fuck up of course).
 
I do agree with the House of M. At first I didn't, but upon looking back I see it was something that needed to be done. The entire point of the X-Men is to be the hunted minority, the feared people who nevertheless protect all of humanity. But it was getting too easy; with so many mutants appearing everywhere, there wasn't much of a burden anymore. They were getting to be rock stars - especially the X-Men. Oh, sure, every once in awhile some religious nut would do some damage, but then mutants would bounce back stronger than ever.

House of M got rid of all that brilliantly - but they're starting to backtrack. Mutants are appearing out of thin air again even though we were supposed to have a complete list of the mutants left. They added some new characters to New X-Men to make the Young X-Men. Why? That cast roster was outstanding. I already miss Surge and Hellion and the rest of them.

But again, they're starting to break it up already... They had one solid continuity for the first time in.. well, since there was just one x-men comic. Now Wolverine's in four different teams again, plus his own arcs (there was a great joke about that in one of the earlier comics I read - "Scott, I appreciate your faith in me but I can't be in ALL the teams..."

But if they get their act together again I think there's a lot of opportunity here. Mutants haven't just gone back to square one, they're actually at square zero - they're dying out. The stakes are hugely raised.
 
I still got quite a few graphic novels on my bookshelf. The problem with comics is that if you don't follow it through all the comic book newssites and filter through the hype and the 89th rehash of the same concept you will have no clue what is actually good on the market.

I sort of gave up after Joe Casey's Automatic Kafka and Wildcats got axed. Apparantly comic books are kept alive by people who all want the same thing over and over again.

A good friend of mine still follows comics and gives me a recommendation now and then. I will order the TPB online and mostly am happy with what I get. The last really good title I read was The Nightly News.

My favourites aside of those just mentioend are Watchmen, 100 Bullets, Transmetropolitan, Top Ten, Stray Bullets, Hellboy, The Ultimates. Someone mentioned Preacher. I still got those as well. Jacked is the right word.

So if anyone has some recommendations in that direction I'd welcome them.
 
@harlekein: Wanted
"When Supervillians Rule, Done Right"
Of course, I won't say it's for everyone (there's a scene where a character massacres a police station for fun, for example), but if you've got stones you should be able to handle it. I mean that in the least chauvinistic way possible :)

I wholeheartedly agree with what you said about comics who want the same thing over and over. At least, that's how it feels when you peel back and look at the story arcs from a long timeline. Up close there are always variations but still the same idea at the core.

@Archangel
I guess I'm just not a fan of major retcons, especially ones that are editor-driven. I believe the story should be in the hands of the writer, and no one else. Sure, you can't let them run rampant but you shouldn't be allowed to throw their work away just because you don't agree, like what they did with Magneto/Xorn. I mean, that was the big hubbub with Spiderman: Brand New Day, and IMO it's something all too easy to do considering the power the editors hold. That's why you run into what you said about all them disparate continuities :/

That's why I usually stick to one-shots and limited series, and just read the mainstream whenever I stop by a shop, my cousin picks it up, or I feel compelled to look at online spoilers. I am curious about getting the Cable monthlies though :) Bishop was one of my favorite characters growing up so I'd like to see where his conflict takes him.
 
I hate retcons too - which is why I like House of M and Messiah Complex: It's not a recon. In fact, Messiah Complex lifts right off of Bishop's original arc. Hell, in Layla's one shot after she's stranded in the future she actually goes and starts the Summers Rebellion!

Magneto/Xorn: Now THERE was a retcon. But that's not House of M or Messiah Complex.

I stopped reading the Cable series. Hated the art, the writing was almost worse.
 
Yeah, Dwayne Sweirczynski or however you spell his name is a teacher at a local college in philly, and his work on Cable and Iron Fist so far has been dreadful.

Secondly, to those discussing the ramifications of house of M...

I was originally against it. X-Men stories were finally, FINALLY after all these years starting to evolve. They were dealing with the interesting new angle of the immense (and constantly growing) mutant population and their gradual acceptance into mainstream society. It was interesting, and bringing it back to the status quo was, in my mind, a bad idea.

However, the stories since ( surprisingly, not hte x-men stories I mean, though Messiah Complex was a fantastic read) have reminded me the inherent problem for the rest of the marvel universe when the world had literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of mutants in it.

That being said, in a lot of ways I really wish the Decimation could have been postponed for 5 years or so. There were so many more interesting stories to be told about the gradual induction of mutants into accepted mainstream society and the different kind of struggles inherent in a world that publically accepts them but privately still fears and resents them.
 
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